This weekend at Mido, an international optics and eyewear trade show in Milan, onlookers were able to discover something unique: or should we say Yuniku? Following last year’s announcement of Yuniku, the world’s first vision-centric 3D-tailored eyewear, Hoet Design Studio and Aoyama Optical France have jumped on board, adding two new collections of 3D-printed eyewear to the platform: Cabrio and We DDD respectively.

“Innovation is my mission statement,” says Bieke Hoet, owner of the Hoet Design Studio. And you can see it in her latest collection of 3D-printed eyewear frames: Hoet Cabrio SX, launched at Silmo 2016. Designed in collaboration with the Belgian indie pop duo SX, this striking new collection features a radically new approach to eyewear design. Out with pinched angles and unflattering edges, in with organic design and fluid lines. Meet Cabrio SX, the newest work of art in the long-running partnership between Hoet Design Studio and Materialise.

Dixie Dansercoer’s job is one that most people can only dream of: he is a polar explorer, and after conducting several record-breaking expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic, he now guides small groups of intrepid travelers around the Polar Regions. Eyewear is all-important in the harsh environments Dixie frequents, but due to his high nose bridge, conventional sunglasses often left a fatal gap between his face and the frame of the sunglasses. Materialise and SEIKO Optical, together with Hoet Design Studio, recently partnered up to create the award-winning Xchanger sports eyewear: a completely customizable, 3D-printed range of sunglasses, which was the perfect solution to Dixie’s problems in finding eyewear to fit his needs. We took the opportunity to speak to him about his experiences with the Xchanger sunglasses during one of his rare visits to his home in Belgium.

If you wear glasses, you know that finding the right frames can be a challenge, to say the least. They have to have the right style, right color, and of course, a comfortable fit. However, did you know that the frames you choose could potentially affect your vision?

Hoet Design Studio’s Cabrio G, a collection of sunglasses for design lovers, comes from a unique inspiration: luxury cars. The prototype of Cabrio G was unveiled at the Brussels Expo 2016, in the company of the Rolls-Royce and McLaren cars that had inspired it. Now that the newest Cabrio collection has just hit stores, take a look at what happens when inspired design meets innovative manufacturing.

Far from its days as a niche technology, 3D Printing now accounts for more than 90% of the world’s in-ear hearing aids: and that’s just one example of how 3D Printing is making waves in the manufacturing sector across diverse industries. At Materialise, we’ve announced five major eyewear manufacturing projects in the past year alone, in addition to several 3D-printed fashion collaborations and other consumer products.

Earlier this year, Materialise and eyewear specialist Hoet Design Studio launched the 3D-printed Cabrio collection. Since then, Materialise and Hoet joined hands again for a collaboration with SEIKO for the SEIKO Xchanger collection of sports eyewear – which won the Silmo d’Or award last month. Having set the bar up high, Materialise and Hoet are back with all-new frames, featuring all-new innovations including the world’s first 3D-printed adjustable temple system, to expand the 3D-printed Cabrio collection. Bieke Hoet, owner of the Hoet Design Studio, had a chat with us about where all this is heading for the eyewear world. (To learn more about how this collection is 3D-printed in Materialise’s certified manufacturing services, check out our case study here.)

Taking place from Jan. 6-9, this year marked the second edition of CES’s 3D Printing Marketplace, organized by the intrepid team at TCT Magazine + Personalize, and Materialise’s first time participating in the event. It goes without saying that CES is big, so much bigger in fact than many people expect – just like the awe-inspiring hotels and casinos in the city this event calls home, Las Vegas. By taking part in CES, we quickly found ourselves among the best that technology has to offer today, and in the years to come, with more to discover and more people to talk to than is possible in a mere 4 days.